


nothing

by loyaulte_me_lie



Category: The White Queen (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-13
Updated: 2014-09-13
Packaged: 2018-02-17 06:01:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2299064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loyaulte_me_lie/pseuds/loyaulte_me_lie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'It was never supposed to end in a way that wasn't a goodbye.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	nothing

**Author's Note:**

> This is another sad oneshot, I'm afraid. It was inspired by a piece of work over on fanfiction, and I will say that Edmund of Rutland is my favourite Wars of the Roses historical person, closely followed by Richard III, of course. So, enjoy! I'd love to hear from you.

**n o t h i n g**

…

 

**it was never supposed to be anything more than a glance.**

Irish exile tastes like smoke, he thinks, as he rides his horse down the cobbled streets, one hand on the reins, eyes fixed on the figure of his lord father ahead, resplendent on a chestnut stallion. Dirty, and gritty and lingering. At least they have lands here, at least they are not reliant on allies as shifty as a winter wind, but it is still nothing to rejoice over. After their frenzied flight, leaving Ludlow, his lady mother and two youngest brothers to the mercy of the Lancastrian army, anything would seem dull, and not for the first time he wishes he’d had the audacity to go with Ned and his cousins to Calais, and not to follow his father to Dublin.

But he has made his choice, cursing his lack of rebellion, and now he must live with it. Letters will have to do.

They finally halt in front of the palatial Dublin residence of the Earls of Ulster, reining in their horses and surrendering them to the waiting grooms, Edmund climbing the steps to join his lord father in the entrance hall, sliding off gloves and stamping boots as the steward bows low, gestures in the direction of the solar off the Great Hall.

They head in, throwing open the door and there is a cry of surprise as the girl building the fire with quick, steady movements stumbles to her feet, sticks of wood clattering to the floor as she stands and stares, looking from him to his lord father to the men behind them, and as her brown eyes meet his, it feels as though a knight in full armour has just ridden onto his chest.

Then, slowly, deliberately, she sinks into a beautiful curtsey that by all rights belongs to a noblewoman greeting a king in her finest silks and velvets, not a maidservant in plain wool, and rises on his lord father’s command. The steward has hastened in behind them, and flaps her out with his hands as though she is a pest of some sort, and smiles apologetically, setting a tray of wine goblets on a waiting table and asking as to whether His Grace requires anything else done before supper.

No, thank you, his lord father says, so the man leaves, and the talk turns to tactics. They’ve barely been three hours on Irish soil and they already plotting how to raise troops, garner wealth and support. Edmund sinks into a chair, and listens quietly, wondering when he can get away to have a bath and succumb to the sleep that tugs insistently at his mind.

**it was never supposed to be anything more than a conversation**

He sees her again the next day, sweeping the deserted Great Chamber, and again there is a thoughtful pause before she curtseys, her foot drawing a perfect circle in the dust, and her arm gracefully arching behind her. The broom clatters out of her hands, and he catches it.

“There is no need for you to do that every time you see one of us,” he says, handing it back, the wood grainy against the palm of his hand.

“As you wish, my lord,” she says in a voice that would have been meek had she not been staring again, the weight of her eyes fixed on his as though she’s searching through his innermost thoughts.

He reddens a little, then curses himself for it. She is still looking. “Do you miss England?”

The question is so unexpected, so sudden, that his head jerks up and he raises an eyebrow. There is a metallic taste on his tongue, and the silence slides by for eternity until he manages to form an answer. “A little. More the people, I would think.”

She shrugs, purses her lips. “Is it a beautiful country?”

“Yes, it is.”

“More beautiful than Ireland?”

“I had never seen Ireland before yesterday, so I couldn’t possibly deliver an opinion.”

“Áine!” The voice cuts through their conversation, and she immediately starts to sweep again. He steps back and lets her, watching out of the corner of his eye as the steward approaches, drawn up, slightly pompous. “I hope she wasn’t bothering you, my lord.”

“No, not at all,” Edmund says.

“The Duke of York has gone out, and he told me to pass on the message that you were to find someplace to amuse yourself today.”

“Thank you.”

And then he walks away and leaves her to her sweeping.

But the conversations keep happening. She bumps into him on the stairs, or when he is alone in the solar, and they talk, she abandoning whichever chore she is supposed to be doing to sit back on her heels and ask questions of England, of his family, of the fight for the crown, and it’s at these times when he forgets he’s supposed to be missing the easy, sarcastic banter of his brother, because Áine has grown up the youngest and only girl of five and is just as sharp and witty as Ned at his finest.

(She still curtseys like a lady whenever she sees him. He can’t seem to make her stop, no matter how hard he tries.)

Whenever someone else come in, silence drops like a bird of prey out of an empty sky, and she is quickly industrious at whichever chore she is supposed to be doing, and he is reading or writing or staring into space and _not_ at the figure she makes bending over to tend to the greedy, crackling fire.

**it was never supposed to be anything more than a kiss**

December arrives in sleeting snow and wind like a sword, and with it comes news from England. The first he knows of it is that he is called into the solar where his father is pacing, crinkling parchment in hand.

“Parliament has passed an attainder against me,” he says without preamble.

It’s not the worst news possible, but it comes close. Edmund nods. It’s the only thing he can do. His father wouldn’t want platitudes from anyone.

“What are we going to do about it, sir?” he ventures.

“We bide our time. The Irish Parliament are backing our claim, as you well know, and I am still Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, but the time is not yet right for invasion. We are to meet with the Earl of Kildare and the Earl of Desmond on the morrow.”

“Yes, sir.”

His father looks down at the letter again, and Edmund recognises the dismissal.

…

It’s several days later, and he’s coming down the tight spiral stairs from his bed-chamber when he bumps into Áine, sweeping again.

“Are the stairs truly that dirty or is this just an excuse to see me?” he asks.

She sinks into her curtsey, head bowing down and body tilting forward and the light from the Great Hall beyond sending copper streaks through her brown hair. There are fingers of blush creeping across her cheeks for the first time, but she rises and looks him straight in the eye.

“Your arrogance is beyond belief, my lord,” she says, but a smile is hanging about her mouth, so he laughs.

“So it is me?”

“Perhaps.”

She has a peculiar way of looking at people, he thinks, looking at them as if she can read their secrets from the way the light falls on their faces. And no matter how many people insist that brown eyes are unlucky, because to bear brown eyes is to bear too close a resemblance to the gypsies, he cannot stop thinking about how on her, brown eyes seem anything but unlucky.

And since he isn’t due anywhere in a hurry, and since he’s been with enough women before to know the signs, he leans forward and kisses her, slowly, easily, and she melts against him, her lips parting, the broom clattering against the stone wall, her warmth searing against him like a firebrand.

They have to jump apart when another servant appears behind them, but it’s worth it to see the smile that looks ready to burst from her face.

**it was never supposed to be anything more than sex**

For a few weeks after that, it’s all hurried, secret kisses against the cold solidity of the staircase walls, or in the solar when no-one is watching, because even though he knows he’s the Duke’s son and he can ensure that nothing will come of any discovery, he also knows how his lord father feels about he and Ned taking their pleasures with the women of the household so it is better not to risk being found out.

After a while, he gives up on going to the brothels whenever the hunger for another body in the bed beside him strikes, because instead of losing himself in the moment, he can’t help but think of Áine, her tumble of hair, the way her body looks bending in a curtsey, and somehow spending his nights with a whore feels like a sin.

And then the kissing becomes more, and it’s the night of Epiphany when he tugs her behind him into his bedchamber, bolts the door and holds her close, kissing her and pulling the pins out of her hair so it tumbles in a wave of shadow and firelight down her back, unlacing the ties at the back of her coarse woollen gown and chemise so she’s naked in his arms, and finally, finally, she’s his at last in every physical way a woman can belong to a man.

**it was never supposed to be anything more than an arrangement**

And so they come to an understanding of sorts. Late at night when she’s done with her chores, she’ll slip up the staircase to his chamber, and he’ll be waiting, sitting on his bed with a book or his studies. He’ll take her in his arms and graze his teeth across her lips, and he knows he’s drowning, he knows that he shouldn’t get in so deep with a woman he’ll have to leave behind, but drowning feels so good that he finds he never wants to breathe again.

**it was never supposed to end in a way that wasn’t a goodbye**

August collapses into September, the coloured leaves drifting down like vibrancy, the nights hot and sullen and short, and they lie together on the bed, clothes scattered about the floor, her head resting on his chest.

“We are to leave on the morrow,” he says quietly, tracing circles on the pale skin of her stomach.

“I know,” she says.

Neither of them question why. He’s a lord, an earl, his place is at his father’s side in the battles to be fought over the English crown.

“I would that I could take you to England.”

“You know you can’t.”

“You’d meet my brother, Ned. I’d have a hard time to keep him from trying to seduce you for himself.”

She laughs, but she wants to cry.

“And your lady mother, what would she think of me?”

“She’d not be best pleased with my choice, but my sister Meg would like you very much.”

“And what of your littlest brothers?”

“Dickon would like the stories you know, and so would our little cousins.”

“I would so love to meet them all.”

“Perhaps I’ll bring them to Ireland, once the battles are done.”

“Perhaps.”

She rises up on her elbows, hair a torrent of bright colour, a waterfall toppling from her head. “Kiss me.”

He is more than happy to oblige.

…

In the end, it is easier to forget about Áine than he thinks it will be. He mentions her to Ned once, when they are riding through the streets together, but Ned has always been able to read Edmund’s emotions from the tiniest inflection in his words, and with his usual careless tact forbears to press.

And then the folly is done. His father tries to claim the crown, and scarce two months later they are riding north to Sandal Castle over the frozen roads, and before they even know it, Christmas has fled and a battle is looming.

He’s nervous, of course he is, but he refuses to show it, and when his father turns to him with a look as grave as an ancient age, the question of ‘do we retaliate’ hanging heavy in the air, he has no choice but to say, yes, sir, yes, we do.

**it was never supposed to be anything at all**

but nothings have a queer way of catching up with you, and he’s on Wakefield Bridge, caught, bound, pain spearing sickeningly through his shattered knee when the knight dismounts from his stallion and stands in front of him.

“I’ll have his name.”

He meets the hooded gaze without flinching. “I am Edmund Plantagenet, Earl of Rutland.”

“York’s boy.” There is no surprise in the knight’s tone.

A dagger rasps against a scabbard, and suddenly people are shouting, screaming, and all Edmund feels is cold disbelief before the red-hot agony of the dagger thrusting between his ribs, his legs giving out, and the sound of his friend, his tutor, sobbing incoherently, hands pressed against the wound gushing bright blood onto the snow.

The world goes black around the edges, and the little nothing of her unlucky brown eyes is the last thing that flits across his mind as he slides slowly into the quiet embrace of death


End file.
